Slave to Passion by Elisabeth Naughton Page B

sold her to Zayd. One that had grown and multiplied exponentially with every second she’d been locked in this cell, wondering—dreading—what would happen next. “Being left alone isn’t safe,” she whispered. “It’s the greatest form of torture there is.”
    He didn’t answer. Didn’t even move. And suddenly, fear for her own safety mingled with urgency for his. If he died from infection now, she was all but dead. Jarriah did not get second chances in the test, no matter the circumstances.
    She pushed to her feet, bent and slid her arms under his, careful not to touch the wound on his side. “Come on, get up.”
    His big hands landed against her shoulders. He rolled his head against the stones. The groan that echoed from his chest told her he still didn’t want her help, but he shifted his feet under himself, regardless.
    “Come on, Marid,” she ground out, pulling as hard as she could. “I can’t do this on my own.”
    Somehow she got him up, braced his back against the wall, and leaned against him to keep them both upright. He had to weigh twice what she did, and he was burning up with fever. She grunted, pulled, and eventually maneuvered him toward the bed. With a groan, he dropped onto the mattress, flopped over onto his back. Blood trickled down his skin from beneath the thin, red-soaked bandage.
    Her stomach rolled again, but she ignored it, instead propped his tree-trunk-like legs up onto the mattress, pulled the blanket out from under him, then draped it across his body. Peeling back the cover near his wound, she dropped to her knees, steeled her courage, then slowly untied the bandage from his torso to get a good look.
    His hand snaked out again and wrapped around her wrist with stunning force. And just as it had before, electricity arced in the air between them, sent a thousand vibrations all along her skin, and pulled a gasp from her lips.
    Her gaze darted to his and held. To eyes that should chill her to the bone but suddenly didn’t. Because this close, she saw something else lurking in their depths. Something she’d missed before when she’d been too scared to think. The same emptiness that consumed her. A hint of vulnerability she hadn’t known was there.
    Her breath quickened. Her skin tingled as if it were coming to life. So many times he could have truly hurt her but hadn’t. Even that first night, he’d let her go. And though he held her tightly and could easily snap her wrist with barely a flick of his hand, she somehow knew he wouldn’t.
    Words formed in her mind. Words she didn’t even know if he could hear in his current state, let alone understand. Words she suddenly needed to say. “I-I’m not here to hurt you, sahad . I only want to help.”
    “You can’t help me,” he muttered. “No one can. Not anymore.”
    His gaze never left hers, and energy vibrated through her entire body under his blinding stare. Energy she felt all the way to her core. In the silence that followed, his ominous words settled in the air around them, reminding her what Hana had told her in the baths.
    “ Marid mate for a lifetime .” Followed by the news that the death of a warrior’s mate was the only thing that could turn him into a monster.
    Was that what he was doing? Battling to avenge his dead mate? Questions she hadn’t thought to ask before circled in her mind. Then mixed and swirled with the image of him, dangerous and magnificent, fighting to the death in the arena.
    Her skin grew hot. A low ache gathered in her chest. Though she fought it, compassion spread through her veins, trickled to her belly. Suddenly, he wasn’t the beast the highborns made him out to be. He was nothing more than a slave fighting to stay alive, just like her. Fighting to defy those who wanted to see him dead.
    That was what she needed to do, she realized. Purpose rippled through her as their gazes held. A purpose that gave her strength, one she’d been lacking since being brought to Jahannam. Zayd could